


Lackadaisy Home Visit

by handful_ofdust



Category: Lackadaisy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Anti-Semitism, Untranslated Yiddish and Slovak Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 16:26:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2354972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovering from the pig-farmers' assault on the Lackadaisy, Viktor Vasko is visited by an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Viktor Vasko opens his eye, the first thing he sees is Mordecai Heller sitting across from him, perched on the bed with his legs crossed and his pocket-watch out, studying its face like an ikon—a dream? But given that (although he would never admit it) Viktor has night-visions of this very thing happening far more often than is probably wise, the idea neither surprises nor frightens him the way it maybe should, considering the circumstances of what he's hitherto assumed was their last meeting.

  
No, real: He can hear Mordecai breathing, ever so slightly; sees light from the window flash across his lenses as he looks up, green eyes only half-hidden behind opaque glass, to say:

  
“Mrs. May told me I'm responsible for this—for you, what happened, all that. I said I felt she was exaggerating, but...”

  
Here he shrugs, compact but fluid, slim body moving easy underneath those fine clothes, a second skin of silk and cotton-blend. And apparently, Viktor's been wanting to see that shrug, or something similar, without even knowing it; he feels the sight of it at his throat like a knife, making it hard to swallow.

  
Though, grantedly, that might just be the pus and lymph moving around again—a bloody cough forming. And him without his goddamn handkerchief.

  
“Okay,” he says, finally. “So now you see. Vhat you tink?”

  
“Well, you don't seem—in fine fettle, certainly; didn't even hear me come in, that I could tell. Half an hour I've been sitting here already, with you just dozing on like _ein alter Kocker._ Frankly, it's...off-putting.”

  
“For me, too.” Viktor sighs, the noise far more liquid than is happy-making. “Got buckshot in lung, that's vhat Leo say.”

  
Mordecai's frown deepens. “ _That_ horse-butcher? He's the best she could do for you?”

  
“You clean us aout, remember? Ve got no reserves for fancy doctoring, can't go to hospital. Besides, he good enough for Atlas too, every time _you_ get shot.”

  
“Well, the man's a complete idiot, and that'd be how I know; you've seen the scars.” Mordecai looks away, makes like he's studying the wallpaper—which he's seen before, a thousand times, and never seemed to like it any better on any of those occasions than he seems like he does now—before finally continuing, as though uninterrupted: “Did he give you something for the pain, at least?”

  
“Someting, yah...”

  
“And where is it?”

  
“...don't know.”

  
Mordecai sighs, as though this is all so wearying, and far more painful for him than for Viktor. If Viktor could reach him, he'd punch him in the face, before pulling him in for the sort of bruising kiss he hasn't felt in far too long.

  
“Of course not,” Mordecai says, to himself. And snaps the watch shut.

  
***

  
In a way, Mordecai sometimes thinks, what happened between him and Atlas May—the bargain they struck, the deal he agreed to, albeit under fairly severe distress—was not unlike selling himself into slavery: Bought and paid for, the ultimate kept boy, not that Atlas ever took that sort of advantage. For the fact is, though his supposed sins were considered particularly grave (mainly because they threatened that most important of things, his former employers' continuing livelihood), because of Atlas's word and money, he gained both the boon of safe passage out of New York (with the proviso he was never to return) and the promise that Zippy Heller and her girls would be provided for, yet left alone. Not being a complete idiot, though, Mordecai hadn't trusted the second part, at least not initially—not until Atlas had pointed out, in fine detail, that it really was in the other principals' best interests not to even appear to renege.

  
“How so?”

  
“Self-interest, son—best decision-maker there is.” Then, with—in retrospect—quite remarkable patience, given the way Mordecai kept on staring: “Because they know that if something starts making you unhappy, I'll have to send you back.”

  
“Why would you do all this for me, Mister May?”

  
“Atlas, Mordecai. Well, I suppose because...you're something a man just doesn't stumble 'cross every day, not unless he's lucky, or in your case, really _un_ lucky: A real artist with natural talent, born, not bred. And I must admit, I sure do love to watch you work.”

  
He'd known about Viktor, of course—Atlas was no fool. Indeed, it's since occurred to Mordecai that by partnering them together in the first place, Atlas might well have been intentionally trying to kill two equally odd, difficult, potentially self-destructive birds with one stone, a stone almost no one else would've thought to employ. Which was...interesting, since Mordecai had had so little worldly experience up to that point that he hadn't known himself exactly what it was which kept tugging his gaze Viktor's way—or Mitzi's, for that matter, not that he would ever have acted on that latter impulse. Not, inarguable impact of her literally fatal charms aside, that he probably ever will.

  
One thing he's never liked to think of himself as, however, is transparent—which is why, these days, he settles instead for thinking of Atlas as unusually clever, at least about most things. But then again, far smarter men have been tripped up by love, along with far stupider. And even now—with Atlas in the ground almost a year, and counting—Mordecai still isn't quite sure just which side of that particular ledger his entries would go on, as yet. Not in his own mind. Not so as to be comfortable.

  
But then again—in he and Viktor's separate yet inextricably-linked lines of work, most especially—comfort as an ideal is, to Mordecai's mind, fairly highly overrated.

  
***

  
There's some more lost time in between Viktor's first glimpse of Mordecai and his next; he comes up thrashing, no longer in the chair but instead being pressed to the same bed Mordecai used to be sitting on, back—uh—God, has the sun gone down already?

  
“Your friend is very _sturdy_ ,” a voice tells someone to his right, disapprovingly. “Not to mention uncooperative.”

  
Mordecai's “professional” voice, now, steely-unconcerned as one of his own gun-barrels. “Yes, yes, I know—stubborn too, and sentimental, illogical, inclined to drink. As flaws go they're not exactly inconsiderable, but I've just had to learn to live with them.”

  
“Did you even tell him I was coming, Mister Heller?”

  
“I believe it may have slipped my mind, mostly because he was asleep.”

  
The first voice clicks its tongue. “Very well; I suppose so long as you assist me, there shouldn't be a problem. Does he have any sensitivity to morphine?”

  
“Not that I know of.”

  
“Good. Hold him down.”

  
Viktor tries to protest, but the sting is fast, efficient—there and gone, pretty much before he has any chance at all to object. And then he goes slipping down once more, a dozing old man whose lit-up head buzzes and snaps with opiates. Though he suspects he probably wouldn't approve of whatever's going on below his neck, he just can't seem to bring himself to care.

  
 _Lie still, idiot,_ Mordecai's voice tells him, between blissful waves, now sounding as though it comes from somewhere right inside his own head. _I didn't pay all this money and drive all this way, simply to watch you die of being fixed_ right, _this time 'round._

  
Viktor wants to argue, at least a little, but it's impossible—his jaw won't open far enough, and the only words his tongue can seem to manage have already turned back into Slovak. So he sinks down under the next wave, letting it submerge him fully, and waits for whenever that meddling, must-have-it-his-own-way little Jew son of a bitch will finally agree to let him back up.

  
***

  
For himself, as Asa Sweet's in-house practitioner does his duty, Mordecai finds himself recalling a floor full of bodies, three years back—almost as many as in that New York bookie's office where Atlas first got the chance to see him practice his “art”, a street or two over from his mother's Rivington Street tenament. Smashed crates and bare limestone weeping chalky water, with Viktor half-sprawled next to him, either being held up by the wall or holding it up himself. And Mordecai's own voice yapping out a string of nonsense phrases, all equally useless statements, embarrassingly unstoppable—talking himself through what had just happened, over and over, or at least trying to. Perhaps looking for ways to rephrase what had just happened so it would somehow make sense, if only out of some vague sense that it probably should, or at least to find a way to still not feel much of anything at all about what he'd just done that wouldn't make him look (if not feel) so much like a monster.

  
And then, a few hours later—in this very room to be exact, under the watchful eye of this same dreadful wallpaper—he remembers the feel of Viktor cramming himself up inside him, inch by wonderful, excruciating inch. Lying there crushed, unable to do much more than croon appreciatively, while his pulse hammered in his ears and Viktor grumbled counterpoint, building slow but steady to a great exhalation—a choked-off roar of arrival to which Mordecai soon added the sound of his own release, a wail half-joyful and half-agonized, rising up forever like some _klezmer_ 's final wedding-skirl.

  
“I'll just send Mister Sweet my bill, shall I?” The house doctor asks, washing his bloody hands in Viktor's tiny bathroom sink. To which Mordecai shakes his head, replying—

  
“No need. I can easily settle things, here and now.”

  
—and reaches inside his jacket, next to his heart, which just so happens (conveniently enough) to be located right next to where he currently keeps his billfold.

  
 _And so we find out: Contrary to popular belief, crime really_ does _pay,_ Mordecai thinks, grimly. _For some things, at least._

  
He almost wishes Viktor awake again, massive expenditure of morphine aside, so he could watch him properly savour the irony.


	2. Chapter 2

When Viktor wakes again, his lungs still hurt, the same as every other part of him; as well, he feels like surely he has fresh-made hand-shaped bruises all over his upper arms, his shoulders, his thighs, and has a pretty good idea how large those hands would be, too—small and neat, with well-trimmed nails and slide-calluses, just like the pair he can vaguely see pouring him tea right now, over by the dresser. But since there's no way of checking, he guesses it doesn't really matter.

  
“Vhere you get that?” He asks Mordecai, voice cracking shamefully. “Mrs Bapka...she don't know I haf visitors.”

  
Mordecai snorts, adding lemon to his. Asks, in return: “That's what you think?”

  
Viktor turns his eye up, coughs deeply, and is frankly amazed when—for the first time since the other night—the sound comes out painful, but relatively dry. “Vell,” he says, finally, “it _vas,_ yah.”

  
Another shrug. “Just wait a while, then; I doubt she'll remember me much beyond the next hour or so, if that.”

  
(Never has _before,_ after all.)

  
The idea of someone so congenitally incapable of having Mordecai make an impression on them—especially after all this time—is, Viktor has to admit, a funny one. But since the joke is blunted somewhat by his own inability to laugh about it without wanting to pass out once more, he lets it go by without further comment.

  
“Feels...different,” is all he says, finally, as Mordecai hands him his cup.

  
“That would be the very palpable disparity in quality between Asa Sweet's sawbones and Mitzi May's, I suppose. And you're welcome, not that you've offered.”

  
Viktor dips his head, takes a sip, willing his temper quiet. Then tells him—after both a long pause and much internal struggle with correct composition, none of which Mordecai, typically, appears to notice in the least—

  
“...tank you, Mordecai.”

  
And: “Hmmm,” is all Mordecai apparently has to say back, by way of reply. So they sit there in silence, drinking.

  
***

  
Though Mordecai has never found Viktor particularly easy to read, he can only suspect—hope, really—that Viktor has similar trouble with him. Certainly, the big ox has given him his share of one-eyed glares and cocked eyebrows over the years, often seeming to imply that he sees more in Mordecai's behaviour than he himself is aware of. It can be infuriating or oddly reassuring, by turns.

  
Take the open issue of their...alliance, for example, which Viktor has (on occasion) called the “vorst-kept secret in St. Louis.” Himself, Mordecai has never thought of it as such, assuming that when you routinely wreck furniture together, it most probably isn't; people do tend not to call him on it, of course, but really that's only common sense, on their parts. And though he's already well-aware of what they say behind his back on other subjects, that really doesn't interest him much, so long as they're not stupid enough to say any of it to his face.

  
For Viktor, on the other hand, words do sometimes seem to hurt, though his size and mass alone probably prevent most of those he comes across from noticing. What Mordecai has eventually been able to realize is that he actually thinks of himself as “bad”, with a sort of wistful rue—himself or the things he routinely does, or maybe he doesn't distinguish between the two. Both stances are equally impossible to understand, from Mordecai's point of view: Equally self-damaging, equally impractical, useless, edge-of-stupid. And Viktor is not, otherwise—no matter what Mordecai may say to the contrary, when sufficiently riled—a _completely_ stupid man.

  
“'Bad': What's that even mean?” Mordecai has complained to him, often enough. “'I don't like that thing you did'... _that_ 's what it means, most times.”

  
“Vhy you tink anyone _vould_ like that ting you did?”

  
“You don't—don't be rhetorical. You don't even know _what_ I might've done in this completely hypothetical case, if anything.”

  
“No, I tink I probably do.”

  
“...well, yes, probably. But that's not the point I'm trying to...hmmm. Let's start over, shall we?”

  
“Ve shall not.”

  
(And they don't, either. Not usually. Not to any satisfactory conclusion, at any rate, with regards to this ongoing argument...though often, given Viktor's usual methods of distraction, to a very different one.)

  
It's a simple matter, really: _Azoy geyt es_ , that's just the way things are. Viktor grew up on a farm, and Mordecai grew up in a slum; Mordecai has never known a time when the work he (or anyone else, around him) did could be called “honest”, and scoffs at the very idea. Someone is always being hard done by somewhere, after all—money is always changing hands. And this is the way the world _works_ , _why_ it works, so there's no point in crying over it; no matter how many times you stand in the street yelling _Oy, vey ist mir!_ at the top of your voice, no one is going to stop and give you a hug. They'll simply push you aside, tell you to stop being such a _shlimazel_ , and get on with what they were already doing.

  
But: “This does not _haf_ to be the vay,” Viktor has claimed, on more than one occasion. To which Mordecai, in all fairness, can never do anything much except wrinkle the skin between his brows suspiciously, suspecting he's being made a joke of.

  
Given Viktor's current situation, however, he suspects this philosophical deadlock of theirs may have been allowed to go on more than long enough. So—

  
“We need to talk,” Mordecai tells him, finishing off his tea with one final swallow. And sets down the cup, arms folding, to wait for Viktor's reply.

  
***

  
And this is the moment Viktor has been dreading, somewhere inside. Has allowed himself to not think about—thus far—in much the same way that back in the trenches, right before an assault, he would force himself to imagine he was about to do almost _anything_ else, from eating fresh strawberries to cleaning out a stall full of horse manure. Because sometimes, depending on the fantasy's content, depth or duration, running head-first out into gunfire might come as an almost-pleasant surprise.

  
“Okay,” he says, at last, sending up a short prayer for self-control. “Vhat abaout?”

  
“Oh, the plain fact that you just can't _do_ things like this, Viktor, and expect to get away with them—that's what our conversation would really _have_ to be 'abaout', at this juncture, by anyone's reckoning. Because you're simply not qualified for these sorts of shenanigans, not anymore, and I don't see why you seem incapable of understanding that: One eye, shrapnel everywhere, two bad knees...”

  
But here's where all good intentions crumble, like an ill-made dike: Viktor feels rage well up in him, uncontrollable, spilling from his mouth like bile. Hears himself shout, jerking up against his own body-weight like a set of chains and falling back almost immediately, shamefully exhausted—

  
“Chah! And whose fault _that_ is, exactly?”

  
“I did what I had to.”

  
“You do vhat you vant, like alvays! Because you tink you _can_.”

  
“And am I wrong? _You_ couldn't stop me, could you?”

  
( _As you very well know...no._ )

  
They glare at each other a minute more, unspeaking, before Mordecai looks away—picks up his hat, brushing the band clean of invisible dirt. Anything, Viktor can only suppose, not to have to meet Viktor's so-terribly-asymmetrical gaze while he tells him, softly:

  
“I couldn't stay, Viktor. Which I _know_ you can appreciate, given my reasons, so—”

  
Viktor shakes his head, refusing to give Mordecai the last word; he's had it so _often_ , after all. “And I don't vant to go, vhich I know _you_ know, and vhy: 'Retirement', hah! So vhy is it so hard to let me just stay, help Miss Mitzi, vhen she need us both? Vhy you do, vhy...” He gestures at his worse knee, still straining to bend, joint boiling with pain so constant he barely even registers it anymore, except at times like these. “...this?”

  
Mordecai stares at the hat some more, like he thinks it's going to propose marriage, like it holds the secret to eternal life, like it's God in disguise. Says, finally, voice willed dead, a thin skin over something truly frightening—

  
“Because...you were going to make me kill you, Viktor, damn you. You were going to stand between me and whatever Asa Sweet points me at next, and cross your arms and wait to see if I wouldn't pull the trigger—but you already know the answer to that one, don't you?” Over Viktor's pointed lack of reaction: “Yes. You do. But...I don't want to, not even if Asa pays me for it. So why would you put me in that position?”

  
“I stay at Lackadaisy, you go to Marigold. If Miss Mitzi's plans mean I haf to go against you, I vill. Vhat then?”

  
“Then you're going to die, Viktor, and you didn't have to. Because I tried to do the right thing.”

  
“Vhy?”

  
“Because I didn't want you dead, idiot; _don't_ want you dead, I mean. And not by my hand, either.”

  
“Vhy?”

  
“For God's sake, Viktor, are you just going to sit there saying 'vhy' all night? Maybe a bit more clarity—”

  
“You, you tell me _vhy_ , God damn _you_! Or you shut up, and get aout!”

  
And: Infuriating calm suddenly gone entirely, Mordecai hisses like an angry kettle, one hand raking up through his own immaculate hair, as though he doesn't even know what he's doing. He'll be surprised later on, Viktor thinks, when he next looks in the mirror. Snarling, as he does—

  
“ _A broch zu dzir, dumbkopf, und a finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss! Why_ 's because...I just _don't_ , that's all. Which really should be enough for _anyone_ , even you!”

  
Close now, enough so Viktor can feel his heat, too close to get away without a struggle. Maybe he hasn't even noticed himself drifting; maybe he's actually forgotten how fast Viktor is, even these days, at least with his hands. Or maybe, just maybe—Mordecai isn't thinking about any of that, at all, not right at this moment. Maybe...this is simply as close as he wants to be.

  
Considering how badly wrecked Viktor is already, it's probably worth the risk, to find out.

  
So: “ _Not_ enough,” Viktor says, grabbing on by both arms, and drags him in for that kiss, before he can think better of the idea. Because if this mistake he's about to make does turn out to be his last, he figures he might as well make it count—

  
—or at least, try his very best to make sure they both enjoy it.


	3. Chapter 3

Mouth on mouth like coming home, _real_ home after far too long a time gone, even with their teeth knocking together just a bit too hard for comfort; Mordecai hisses again at the sting, then feels Viktor's big hand fist in his hair, preventing him from pulling away. His tongue, so hot and thick yet so surprisingly agile, licks at Mordecai's lips from the inside, making both their trousers tighten. Making Mordecai think, reflexively, as it does: _God, oh God, I've missed—_

  
(this)

  
( _you_ )

  
Seeing Mitzi earlier today— _Mrs May,_ he reminds himself, strongly, and yesterday now, as of perhaps ten minutes ago—was hard enough, especially coming as a blindside punch Asa Sweet barely bothered to warn him about beforehand, just when Mordecai has finally begun to feel his world is oriented correctly once more: A place for everything and everything in its place, even if said places are, for the most part, inherently odd, disorganized, or disappointing. But _this_ , Viktor, is both better and worse, at the same time: That old collision, frightening as ever. Like racing through the backwoods, balanced on a rickety jalopy's running-boards and shooting at something you can't even see, trying to draw a bead back along the sound of somebody else's bullets.

  
Viktor Vasko, built like the truck he drives, for maximum impact. On their best nights together, Mordecai's always felt well and truly run over; the damage (while minimal) lasts longer than anyone around him ever knows, and half the thrill often lies in making sure no one—not even Viktor—can tell just how thoroughly he's been left hurting afterwards, wearing his full-body hangover as an entirely perverse badge of pride. For him, it probably provides much the same kick other people seem to get out of drinking, or so he can only assume.

  
But that isn't going to happen this time, and he knows it, even if Viktor doesn't seem to. Simple mechanics; no matter how willing, Viktor's flesh is currently weak enough that his body just can't take the strain. Look at him now, forcing himself up far enough to briefly loom over Mordecai, like he's bent on imitating better days, before falling back yet once more, groaning over the fact that he's still unable to completely heft his own bulk; the pain (and shame, don't forget _that_ ) of it comes reeking out from every pore, making him grimace to keep from growling—try to, anyhow. And fail.

  
(And: You _did this, fool,_ Mordecai is unable to stop himself from thinking. _So now what, exactly?_ )

  
Stupid Slovak ox, with his ridiculous scruples and his massive frame, never doing what you expect. Or _always_ doing what you expect, rather, albeit when you least expect it.

  
“Oh, Viktor,” he finds himself saying, hearing something in his own voice, as he does—a note so unfamiliar it might almost sound like pity, coming from someone else. “Would it kill you to ever plan things through, just a little bit?"

  
Viktor shivers top to toe, like he has an ague—one hand goes to his fresh-bandaged side, which has already started to darken again. It's a sad spectacle, and the very fact that Mordecai can still see the front panel of his B.V.D.s straining like a het-up shimmy-show attendee's while he does it is even sadder yet.

  
“Don't know...vhat you mean,” he manages, eventually. To which Mordecai really can only snort, and reply, resisting the urge to surreptitiously adjust his own, equally-taxed underwear—

  
“Yes, well, I know you don't. I know that _very_ well.”

  
(You never do.)

  
***

  
It does hurt, that's true enough, God piss on him— _everything_ hurts, to varying degrees, all over. But there are many types of pain, and Viktor feels like he's feeling them all, at the same time: Want and regret, the urge to peel back time, his own body's imminent collapse. Parts of him are working fine, but only parts, and their very urgency mocks the rest's sudden inability; mocks _him_ , in general, for letting this sleek little creature he almost has back within his grasp—almost, but not quite; maybe never again, not like before—ruin him so completely, simply by standing by and trusting that he wouldn't, if given the chance.

  
(Because, as Mordecai already pointed out, just moments ago: _You already know the answer to_ that _question_ ; always have, down deep, in your heart of hearts. Just wanted to hope against hope that you were wrong...)

  
Hope is for idiots, though. He's known that since 1918, at least.

  
“I could, maybe—” He starts over, trying not to sound as grim as things look, right at this moment. To which Mordecai snaps back, quick as a slap: “What, bleed all over me, then pass out? You can barely move, as it is.”

  
“Ve could, uh—lie on side? My side...your side...”

  
“I think not.”

  
So _bossy_ , the bastard—same as usual, but worse. It's really not to borne, especially in Viktor's current state.

  
“You don't get your vay, not alvays,” he claims, recklessly, though for hardly the first time, as if saying will make it so. “Are other people in this vorld, and they vant other things—or maybe vhat they vant _is_ vhat you vant, and you are just too, eh...vhat is vord? Too _spoil_ to admit.”

  
This touches a nerve; Mordecai's eyes spark, glasses flashing. “ _Spoiled?_ You don't begin to know the first thing about how _spoiled_ I've been by this shit-hole of a life, this _world_ , you lump of goddamned _goyishe_ clay—”

  
“Chah. You talk too much, alvays, and it never makes any sense, vhat you are saying. But fine, I don't vant to talk anymore vith you, anyvays.”

  
“Oh no?”

  
“No. Vhat I vant is to _fuck_ vith you.”

  
Wrinkling his nose: “So predictable. As though you could even manage—”

  
Here, however, Viktor just kisses him again, twice as hard as before; keeps on doing it, too, no matter how the rest of him complains. Pain is just pain, and he figures he can take it far better than letting Mordecai keep on talking, no matter how bad it gets. As though to test this theory, meanwhile, he realizes that Mordecai is already trying to say something, right into Viktor's mouth—small and strangled yet still fairly understandable, if only because the skull makes for a pretty good echo-chamber: _Do you want to die?_ , is what he thinks it sounds like, though he can't be completely sure.

  
“Fuck you 'till you can't valk, 'till you can't _stand,_ ” Viktor tells him back, muffled, trying to drown him out, like it's a foregone conclusion, not wishful thinking. “You shut up _then_ I think, by God...”

  
But now his ribs _are_ well and truly wet once more, his head hot-swimming, almost delirious. And Mordecai just pulls off with a wet little pop, pushes him back down, as though every bit of strength seeping out of Viktor is flowing straight into him, instead: Stares haughtily down on him as if from a much greater height, brows knit and friction-puffed lips pursed, like he's unsure whether or not to snicker.

  
“Stay still,” he orders.

  
“I don't—”

  
“What did I say, Viktor? You _stay still_ , or I stop—it's that simple. One or the other.”

  
_Well, when you put it that way..._

  
Obviously, however, his silence has been taken for agreement; Mordecai is already slipping his spectacles off and tucking them safely away, after which he takes the time to strip completely, methodically, folding each piece of clothing in turn and piling them on the dresser, where they won't get mussed. Fascinating to watch, really, for all the extra stress it puts on Viktor's already-taxed anatomy; what continues to amaze is that for a man of so much (over-)sensitive dignity, Mordecai has—when it comes right down to it—no real shame. But then again, that's a trait they both happen to share, thank Christ.

  
Viktor's bed dips slightly as Mordecai sets himself down, shifts in, so they're nose to nose; the movement puts him ever-so-slightly higher, for perhaps the first time ever, and Viktor finds he likes having to look up at Mordecai better than he might've assumed he would, not that he's really ever given the idea much thought. And when Mordecai slides a disdainful finger past his freshly-dirtied dressings (they'll have to be changed again, after), but chases it with one rough lick to Viktor's neck—tasting him all up and down along the cord, unhurried yet decisive, as though he's made up his mind to get at least a little messy, but only on his own terms—Viktor likes _that_ even better still. Tells him he's in good, if fussy, hands.

  
“Any objections?” Mordecai asks, into Viktor's clavicle. “Because _I_ can stop anytime, believe you me. Or do you think I'm joking?”

  
Viktor clears his throat, dryly. “No,” he says. “You...don't do that, please. I don't move, you don't vant me to.”

  
“Huh. Then that'd be the first time, wouldn't it?”

  
“Vhat you vant from me?”

  
Mordecai pulls back a bit again, looks down-not-up, his green eyes myopically wide. “To be able to suppose that if you're willing to let me do all the work, you'll let me dictate terms, as well,” he says, crisply. “Take my orders without question, or objection—do what I tell you, when I tell you. _Don't_ do what I tell you not to. Deal?”

  
Another swallow, even drier. Viktor's head hums; at this particular minute, he knows, he might promise him almost anything for the vaguest promise of relief, and he can't think that Mordecai doesn't know it. Just trust—foolishly, no doubt—that so long as he _does_ get to set the rules of this engagement, he's far more likely to actually honour them.

  
“...is deal,” he agrees, at last.

  
“That's what I thought,” Mordecai replies, almost primly. And leans in.

  
Might be Viktor does pass out, then—a few times in quick succession, reducing what follows to sloppy slices, some wonderfully dirty story cut apart and glued back together, just out of order enough to startle. Kissing, teeth, sweat; a flush mounting, all over, setting off a series of minor aches that burn like spice in a wound; the sadly unfamiliar sight—and feel—of Mordecai face-down between his legs, taking his precious goddamned time 'till Viktor wants to yell the roof off. When his hand drops to stroke the back of Mordecai's neck, adrenaline sending him clumsily off-target, he suddenly touches what can only be the length of his own cock puffing out the side of Mordecai's throat like a frog's and oh, _boze Jezis, ja hod, sakra sakra_ sakra—

  
As he comes back down, meanwhile, he can feel Mordecai vibrating against him, abruptly re-oriented so they're cheek by cheek—a struck string, barely able to keep from rutting into Viktor's hip, some badly-wound mechanism only made for self-abuse. _Sulozit' svoju matku_ , it's like a whole new punch to the head, an after-shock gut-strike. So before Mordecai can recover fast enough to stop him he's already got his teeth set into one shoulder, holding him still, and Mordecai caught tight by the short hairs, choked like a chicken.

  
What follows is satisfyingly quick and jerky, intense enough to leave them both even stickier—shuddering, if not squealing. And once the main crisis is past, Viktor can still feel him panting, undone, a series of uncontrollable little heaves; he hugs the thrill of it to himself hard, kissing Mordecai thoroughly enough he almost thinks he might die happy and tasting himself on his breath, strong enough to drown in.

  
“An idiot, that's what you are,” Mordecai tells him, into the skin of his chest, as though he's too tired to bother looking up. “Make it home all the way from France, and _this_ is what you want to kill yourself over? _Zolst lign dr'erd un bak beygl._ ”

  
But: “ _Drz hubu, ty,_ ” is all Viktor tells him, with one last shudder; “is damn vell _vorth_ , little bitch, so be kviet.”

  
And goes out completely, at long last, like a shot light.

  
***

  
When Viktor comes to again, Mordecai is already up and dressed, standing by the wash-basin with a mirror in one hand and grooming himself with the other. Which is how he notices Viktor watching, eventually, and says, without turning: “I can't stay.”

  
Viktor coughs, long and loud--wet again, predictably, and yet he looks _surprised_ , the moron. Like Mordecai hasn't damn well _told_ him what would happen, a hundred times already.

  
(But maybe he really does think it was worth it, sincerely, if totally impractically. One can only hope.)

  
“Do I ask you to?” He replies, hoarse.

  
“Did I offer? Then again, maybe I should, and finish you off. It'd be a mercy, for everybody involved—quieter, too. By far.” One last hair-flick. “But no: I have a job to go to, thank you; the same one that got you a real doctor, Asa Sweet's doctor, instead of a bout with pneumonia and peritonitis. Unlike _your_ job, which—in case you hadn't noticed—just almost got you killed.”

  
“Vas your job too, before. But maybe is true after all, vhat they say—”

  
\--and he knows he shouldn't even have begun that sentence, probably, halfway through—certainly can't follow it to its logical conclusion. But it doesn't matter: Mordecai is already halfway back on top of him with all his teeth bared, shoulders puffing up like a cat's ruff. Asking, coldly: “Oh, and what do they say, again? Please, enlighten me. That _the Jew alvays goes vhere is the money,_ perhaps?”

  
“I don't say that.”

  
“You don't have to.”

  
“No, Mordecai, god damn! I _don't_ say that, at all. I never.”

  
“Not to my face, anyhow.”

  
They stare at each other for a moment, each seemingly daring the other to break eye-contact. 'Till Viktor points out, carefully: “Naow you are just _looking_ for reason to go.”

  
 _...so_ go.

  
There's nothing more to say, really, after that. But grantedly, this fact has never stopped Viktor before—and when he tells him, ridiculously, “Everyvone miss you, you know, at Lackadaisy,” Mordecai can barely keep from laughing.

  
“Please,” he says. “If you're going to lie, at least try to make it convincing.”

  
“Miss Mitzi—”

  
“— _needs_ me, yes, to do her dirty work and watch her back, same as Atlas did: Too bad. She should've...” He shakes his head. “No, it's settled. What's done is done.”

  
“Atlas, he vould not vant this either. He lof you, alvays—like son.”

  
 _The kind you point at things you want killed, maybe,_ Mordecai thinks, uncharitably. Remembering, at almost the same instant, some neighbourhood woman saying behind him, while he walked down the stairs with Atlas's steadying hand on one arm: Oy, _that can't be Zippy Heller's boy, can it, over there with the blood on his cuffs—such a nice young man, so smart! So_ quiet.

  
And: “Perhaps not,” he admits, finally, straightening the descendants of those very same cuffs, with their pretty little new-minted marigold-shaped links. “But as we both know...Atlas May is dead.”

  
Which certainly makes for a good line to leave on, if nothing else. So he does, not looking back: Shuts the door on Viktor's sigh, neatly. Tips his hat to Mrs Bapka, looking around and smiling at nothing like usual, on his way down the stairs; steps out across the street towards the car Asa now says is “his”, hoping he's walking straight.

  
What annoys him to realize, only now, is that rumour of where he's been may well have already reached Asa's ears, though he doubts he'll actually be called on the carpet because of it—the information will simply be filed away to be pulled back out at some later date, an extra goad for Asa to tease him with, ruffle him deliberately just to amuse himself by seeing how Mordecai _won't_ react. One way or the other, wherever he's sent tonight, Serafine and Nico Savoy will grin at each other and insist on making flirtatious small-talk he can't put himself out to keep up with, in and between doing their mutual job. One day, he almost thinks, he should point out to them that he's far more likely to sleep with them outright than he ever is to start making jokes; the results might be interesting, informative. Potentially explosive, at least.

  
Another saying comes into his head just then, one he finds he'd almost forgotten: " _Er hot lib dem bitern tropn._ " Literally, _he loves the bitter drop_ , colloquial for liquor, Mordecai's martyrdom-implement of choice—but it can also refer to the bitter drop of poison supposed to hang at the tip of the sword carried by the _malekh ha-moves_ , the Angel of Death. So not just used to describe someone who goes for flat-out slamming drunk every time he picks up a shot-glass; this is for someone who likes everything best when it's done under the shadow of that sword. Someone to whom nearly getting himself killed is as good as a stiff drink, as opposed the rest of the Marigold and Lackadaisy's customers.

  
Himself, yes, undeniably. But Viktor as well, as already proven, in fashion equally impossible to refute.

  
 _We are all put here to do what we have to, that's what the_ rebbanim _say,_ Mordecai thinks, opening the car door. _To do what God made us for: Break the world, break each other; break ourselves, even, maybe even_ on _each other..._

  
...but not in that order, perhaps, not necessarily. And—not yet.

  
Not _just_ yet.

  
THE END.


End file.
